Family
by Tygger3389
Summary: 3 way cross over. Warehouse 13, Agents of Shield and White Collar. Skye's past has always been a twisted mess of secrets and half-truths. Now, it's time to let go of the ones she's been keeping. To make matters worse, someone is hunting her and it's going to take the unlikely union of Warehouse 13 and the FBI's pet con-man to keep her safe.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"That must be our victim." Ward nodded at the body laying on the floor in the middle of the abandoned warehouse. The woman was blonde, petite and fairly non-threatening looking. Her clothes were tattered and bloody, the first sign that something was off. "Check her out, I'm going to take a look around."

"Uh, yeah, remind me why I'm here and not Simmons?" Skye sighed, wincing at the sight of the dead woman.

"Simmons is busy helping Fitz with that tech we brought in on Friday." Ward pointed out, "Coulson thinks you can handle it."

"Right, hacker, doctor, what's the difference?" She rolled her eyes.

"Are you up to the task or not?" Ward frowned.

"I'll do my best." Skye leaned over the body, trying not to be too bothered by her injuries. She pulled up the sleeve of the dead woman, frowning at the object wrapped around her wrist. It didn't look at all like what they were used to, it was a wide cuff made of old leather with some sort of runes around the edges. "Ward, look at this. This isn't Centipede."

"You're right." He frowned, "This looks old… and human."

"So we're dealing with something else. Something like the rage stick thing." She frowned, reaching for the cuff with a gloved hand.

"Don't touch that." Skye jumped at the voice, jerking her hand back just a second before her fingers would have come into contact with the cuff.

Her eyes darted over the face of the auburn haired girl, her jaw hanging open as she rose to her feet, "Donovan?"

The other girl tried to hide her surprise, not lowering the strange looking firearm she was pointing at the pair, "What are you doing here?"

"You know her?" Sky had almost forgotten Ward was there until he spoke, she was far more preoccupied with the girl before her. The auburn haired girl hadn't changed much since Skye had seen her last, she was still small and willowy, with soft brown eyes, though she now wore thick black makeup around them.

Skye backed up so she was standing beside him, eyeing the other girl cautiously, "I thought I did…"

"I'm sorry, Beth." Claudia told her, not lowering the strange looking gun, "I didn't want this to be like this, but I need to take that cuff and I get the feeling your buff friend here isn't going to let me do that."

"You're right." Ward agreed, "That's a potentially dangerous object, I can't allow you to take it."

"Oh please, dangerous objects are what I do." She pointed the gun at Ward, pulling the trigger and watching him collapse to the ground as the lightning hit him. Slowly, she turned the gun on Skye, "I really am sorry."

_ The girl sat on the rickety old bed in her room that rarely felt like her's, picking at the threadbare quilt that was never warm enough in the winter, staring at the new girl who couldn't be more then nine, a year younger then her. The new girl, Claudia, as Sister Margaret had called her, was perched uncomfortably on the edge of the bed that had just become her's. She'd come in like most other kids, with all her belongings, not that there were many, in a garbage bag. She looked lost, which was pretty standard for kids like the two of them, sans real family and apparently unwanted by foster families. Still, it was hard not to pity Claudia, she had a family once, someone she could remember and cling to in her thoughts. The girl never had. Slowly, she rolled off the bed, fishing underneath for the bag of jelly beans she kept hidden there. Crossing the room, she offered the auburn haired girl the bag, "Sweetie-bean?"_

_ A ghost of a smile appeared on Claudia's face as she took a small handful of the beans, "Most people just call me Claudia… but thanks."_

_ The girl chuckled, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to her , "They call me Beth, by the way."_

_ "It doesn't suit." Claudia told her._

_ "I know." The girl grimiest, "The nuns gave it to me when I was left here."_

_ Claudia smiled, "Well, maybe you should pick a new one…?"_

"Skye?" Skye blinked and winced as Simmons called her name, patting her timidly on the cheek as if it would help her snap out of whatever lightning hangover she seemed to have. Needless to say, it did not have the desired effect, in fact, it was mostly just making her feel dizzy.

She groaned and waved the older girl's hand away, "Jem, not helping."

"Sorry." Simmons moved back so the younger girl could attempt to sit up, which apparently was a bad idea. Skye gave a pained groan and lowered herself back to the ground, her hands on her forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Like crap." She snipped a little more sharply then she meant to. Her head was pounding like a bass drum on steroids. Suddenly she remembered what had been happening before she was zapped, "Where's Claudia?"

Simmons frowned, shaking her head, "Who's Claudia?"

"My… my sister. Sort of. It's complicated." She groaned, "We're… were very close. Practically sisters back at the orphanage… she shot us!"

"Is that what happened?" Ward grumbled a few feet away, "I just remember the body and the cuff and the light and that girl… Claudia."

"Yeah." Skye sat up again, this time staying upright, "This doesn't make any sense, she said she needed the cuff."

"Did she take the body?" Ward asked, glancing around, groggily.

"No." Fitz answered, wondering over with a device to check Skye and Ward for any internal injuries, "Just the cuff."

"Then that confirms, it was the cuff, not the woman, that she wanted." Skye frowned, stumbling to her feet, waving off Fitz as he tried to help her, "I have to find her. Where's the bus?"

"Outside." Simmons told her, helping Ward up and following after Skye's wobbly steps towards the plane, "If you two are so close, why have you never mentioned her?"

"We lost touch." Skye told the three agents in tow, trying not to think about the morning she'd woken up and found Claudia missing. "A long time ago now."

_The girl sat up and stretched, yawning and rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. Claudia was already up, which was odd, since the younger girl was a particularly late riser. Slipping out of bed, she surveyed the room and a sudden panic came over her. Claudia's backpack was missing, her drawers mostly emptied, books and personal effects missing. The girl flew out of the bedroom, barely glancing into the two other bedrooms, the occupants all sleeping soundly, checking the living room and kitchen for any sign of the red haired girl, "Claude?"_

_ Her shout roused one of her roommates, the man stumbled out of his room, blurry eyed and alarmed, "Kid, what's wrong?"_

_ The girl stood in the middle of the living room, staring at him blankly, unsure of what to do anymore, "Claudia's gone…"_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Peter groaned trying to lift his heavy head, his mind searching for some clue as to what had happened to him. Neal, he remembered, they'd been at the museum investigating the theft of a piece of ancient armour from a visiting Norse exhibit. They'd requested a look in the vault and as he'd turned his back, the curator had hit him in the back of the head with something, hard. Finally managing to raise his head, he locked eyes with Neal across the room, zip tied to a chair, much like himself. He had dried blood smeared around his nose and a bruise spreading across his cheek, like he'd been bashed across the face. "Neal? Are you okay?"

"I'm tied to a chair in what appears to be a dank basement." Neal reminded him dryly, "I'm great."

"What do they want from us?" Peter thought aloud, struggling against his bonds with little success and much chaffing.

"I wish I knew." Neal shook his head, "This seems awfully far to go for a single piece stolen from a museum."

"And the curator said alone, the cuff isn't not worth much." He agreed, "What if the robbery was bait, to get the FBI involved?"

"To what end?" Neal frowned, "Revenge? Information? … Peter, maybe you weren't the target."

Peter stopped struggling and stared at him, "What do you mean?"

"Just think about it." Neal told him, "I've allegedly stolen a lot of very valuable things from a lot of people. It's not absurd to think that a few of those people might want their stuff back and be less then pleasant about it."

"So close and yet so far." Both men jumped in surprise at the unfamiliar voice. Neither man recognized the owner of the voice, a young, non-threatening looking man of Chinese decent. The man ignored Peter almost entirely, instead moving to stand over Neal, his cold, dark eyes examining the older man like he was a pest to be dealt with, "What I want from you, Mr. Caffery, is quite simple actually. I want _the girl_."

"Are you alright?"

Claudia glanced up at Steve as he asked, she knew why he was worried, she'd been quiet all the way back to their hotel. She couldn't stop thinking about Skye. She'd had a lot of surrogate siblings over the years, but before Steve, Skye was the closest to her heart. And she'd abandoned her. She shook that thought away, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"That girl." Steve raised an eyebrow, not even bothering to point out her obvious, barely covered up lie, "You knew her?"

"I did. A long time ago now." She nodded, clearly not wild about talking about it.

"And?" He pressed, "You hesitated before you shot, Claude, she obviously meant something to you, so why have you never mentioned her?"

Claudia bit her lip, "She didn't mean _something_ to me, Jinksy, she meant _everything_ to me… for a long time.

He looked surprised, "What happened?"

"I committed myself to an institution." She told him dryly, "I never said goodbye… and I never saw her again."

"Until today." Steve confirmed. Claudia looked like she was going to say something else, but was cut off by an knock on the door, "I'll get it."

"Great." Claudia watched him head to the door before turning back to her computer, she was looking into where Skye had gone when they'd parted ways. Her friends from those times had done a good job of keeping a low profile, but being who she was, she had little trouble finding what happened to them. One in the wind, one in prison, Skye joined the Rising Tide and the last of their little surrogate family, Claudia's heart sank as she read, had died a few years prior.

"Claude, did you order room service?" Steve yelled from the door. She frowned and was about to point out that she'd hardly had time, when she heard something hit the floor.

Abandoning the computer on the bed, she leapt to her feet, her fingers brushing her Tesla. There was a man in the doorway, standing over and unconscious Steve, pointing a tranquilizer gun at her. Claudia drew her Tesla, but before she could fire, the man shot her and she collapsed.

"Any luck?" Ward asked, still grumpy about being zapped, he was about as eager as Skye to find the younger girl.

"Nothing." She sighed, "I ran all these same checks when she… when we lost touch. Of course, it's not turning up anything new. I'm going to have to run some new tricks. Things I didn't know last time I tried."

"What happened between you too?" Ward asked, unable to hide his curiosity about the past she never spoke of.

Skye hesitated, seeming to choose her words carefully, like she herself wasn't entirely sure what the right answer was. Finally she settled for, "I don't know. I just woke up one morning and she was gone."

"And today was the first time you saw her since?" He wondered.

"Yeah…" A small scowl crossed her features, he knew her well enough by now to know it was not an angry one, but one that showed hurt. "I thought… I thought she must have died. We were so close for so long, I thought the only way she would leave me for so long was if she was dead."

"How long?" He probed gently, not wanting to upset her any farther, but it was rare to hear her speak so freely about her past.

"Six years." She thought back to those times, "We finally had a place where we belonged. A family sort of, they were unconventional but they were good people. And we were happy. And then she started acting off. She withdrew from everyone, got really quiet and started losing sleep. I didn't think too much of it because it was around a rough time of year for her, right about when she'd arrived at the orphanage. I should have said something but I didn't and then she was just… gone."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Simmons leaned over the back of the couch to see what Skye was tapping away at on her laptop between monopoly turns, "Is that her then? Claudia?"

"Claudia Donovan." Skye nodded, running a scan to search the web for any odd mention of any known alias of the younger girl and where she'd gone when she'd left the apartment that unforgettable morning. So far she was coming up blank at every turn.

"Cherry?" Simmons asked, confused, "If you're searching for aliases, shouldn't there be a first and last name."

"Usually that is the case, but Claude is an expert hacker and everyone who's anyone uses a nickname in the virtual world. It makes you harder to track." She explained, barely looking up from the screen, "It's usually got some personal meaning to the hacker, but won't mean anything to anyone who isn't close to the hacker. Claudia's favourite Runaways song is Cherry Bomb."

"I thought you were the expert hacker?" Fitz showed of mild interest, passing her the dice, "So you know her well enough to know all her aliases, but you're not turning anything up?"

"Please, if I were an _expert_ hacker, you wouldn't have caught me sitting in my van and you certainly wouldn't be able to afford to keep me around." She smirked, "No, my skills were taught to me. Claudia, on the other hand, was a natural with computers, it was like she spoke their language, hell, she practically lived and breathed in code. And it's not hard to burn an identity, I've done it twice."

"She was your first teacher." Ward guessed, "Before Myles."

"We traded off." She smiled slightly as she remember, "She taught me how to hack and I taught her how to play guitar."

"You play the guitar? Fitz plays the piano, you two should jam sometime!" Simmons told her excitedly, then paused, frowning slightly, "Wait, what was your "hacker name"?"

"Skye." She smirked, finally rolling the dice, "Fitz, can you please move me seven to… ugh, water works."

Ward, Fitz and Simmons all intently watched Skye count out seventy dollars in monopoly money for Fitz, who owned both utilities and was surprisingly cleaning up the game with them. When it became obvious that she wasn't going to elaborate, Ward took the dice and stared at her, "If Skye is your "hacker name", what's your real name?"

Skye gave him a look, "Are you going to roll?"

"Skye!" Fitz protested loudly as she slipped in a pair of headphones.

"Don't bother, Fitz." Ward rolled her eyes, "For someone who's so into the whole freedom of information thing, she seems to really get off on being mysterious."

"I do not!" She frowned, pulling out the ear buds out again, though they knew that she could hear them anyways, "What does it matter what they called me? That name doesn't belong to me."

"You were given a name at the orphanage." Simmons realized, nodding, "Not by your parents."

"It's easy to ditch a name that already feels fake." She shrugged. "Skye is the first name that meant anything to me."

"But Claudia knew you before you were Skye." Ward pointed out, "Before she shot us, she called you something. Something else."

Skye watched him wrack his brain for a minute, trying to recall the name. She shook her head, "Good luck, that lightning gun really scrambles your brain." She got up, snapping the computer shut, "Simmons, take over for me. I just remembered I have a thing to do."

"A thing?" Simmons echoed, but didn't pass up the chance to get in on the game, the beginning of which she'd missed.

"Yeah, I'll be back." She lied, heading towards her bunk.

Suddenly Ward was on his feet, pointing at her like she was the million dollar answer on jeopardy, "Beth!"

Skye froze in the doorway turning back, "What?"

"She called you Beth." He confirmed, more remembering then informing her, "As in short for Elizabeth."

Skye scowled, wrinkling up her nose, "Don't call me that."

The three young agents watched her retreat towards the bunk area, shuffling uncomfortably. Fitz finally broke the silence, "I wonder if…"

"If?" Simmons asked curiously.

"Well, doesn't Coulson keep files on all of us?" He looked to Ward for confirmation, "He would know more about her then most."

"Looking in her file would be a huge violation of her privacy, not to mention countless regulations." He pointed out, then hesitated, "And Coulson's not just going to give it to us."

"I…" It was Simmons turn to be unsure of herself, "I may or may not tknow where he keeps the key to the file cabinet…"

Ward shot her a look, "Uh huh."

"I just stumbled across it!" She told him, "I wasn't snooping! … That much."

_The girl sat on the cold, hard, wet ground, her back pressed up against the brick side of the building, trying to leech any heat she could from inside. Claudia was asleep, tucked under her arm and she was glad to have her body heat to share. It hadn't been hard, deciding to leave St. Agnes. The orphanage was over capacitated and their beds could be used by younger kids who still had a chance at adoption. Not to mention that things weren't exactly cheerful around the place. The two had tried to be helpful and take care of the younger children, but they always seemed to be underfoot. On the streets they weren't in anyone's way, in fact, they seemed to be invisible. Hundreds of people passed them buy every day and a single dollar from even just a handful of them would buy the two girls a sandwich, but no one ever stopped. She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of fancy shoes on the wet sidewalk passing her by. A small frown creased her forehead as she hear a pair of feet stop in front of her. Peeking through her lashes, she saw a tall, handsome young man standing over them. He couldn't have been more then twenty-four with wavy dark hair and striking blue eyes._

_ The man crouched down so he was on her level, "Hi there."_

_ She stared, "Hi…?"_

_ Smiling softly, he offered her his hand to shake, "I'm Neal."_

_ She hesitated, then took his hand, "Beth."_

_ "It's a pleasure." Neal grinned widely, "Tell me, Beth, will you let me buy you and your friend here some lunch?"_

_ The girl gave him a suspicious look, "Why would you do that?"_

_ "Because I understand how it feels to be you." He told her, "And because I feel generous today."_

Peter sat with his head bowed, listening to Neal's ragged breathing. He couldn't look at the younger man, knowing it wouldn't be a pretty sight. Their captor had stood over him for a good three and a half to four hours, attempting to extract information about a girl Peter had never heard of. Neal, it seemed, was determined to keep the girl a secret. The only girl he knew of from Neal's life before prison was Kate and she hardly needed protecting anymore. Neal coughed and Peter glanced at him, wincing. The younger man looked like he'd been hit by a bus, blood and sweat marring his usually charming features. "Neal?"

Spitting out blood, the younger man rose his eyes to meet Peter's, "Peter?"

"This girl…?" Peter wondered, trying to pick his words carefully so as not to offend Neal, "This girl, is she worth it?"

Neal's eyes got a far away, affectionate look to them as he thought about the girl and he actually managed a smile in Peter's direction despite the pain it would have caused his clearly broken nose, "She's worth everything."


	4. Chapter 4

"Any luck?" Fitz hissed, shifting through the pile of folders that Simmons had handed him, not having any luck.

"Nothing under 'S' for Skye, 'E' for Elizabeth_or_ "'B' for Beth." Ward frowned, "What else would it be under?"

"It's alphabetized by last name, Ward, she's under 'Y'." Simmons grinned holding up a file triumphantly, "And Beth isn't short for Elizabeth, it's Bethany. Bethany Young, born April, 1990 in China, birth name… uh, unknown. Parents, unknown. Legal guardian, Saint Agnes Orphanage and the state of D.C.… Skye thinks that S.H.I.E.L.D. abandoned her at that orphanage, but they didn't, they practically stalked her throughout her childhood. Every major achievement she's ever made is in here."

"If she was born in China, how did she end up in a D.C. orphanage?" Ward wondered, reaching over and taking the file from her, "You're right… report cards, criminal record, every foster family she ever had… she never stayed with a family for more then three months and it wasn't her fault. S.H.I.E.L.D. intentionally up rooted her every few months to try and keep her from forming attachments. Jeeze, look at this. She was listed as a long term priority subject with WITSEC. It was considered note worth, and a negative development, that she always had the same roommate at the orphanage from age ten to eighteen. Look at that, her roommate was Claudia Donovan. _And_ they disappeared from the orphanage together when they were fifteen and sixteen. S.H.I.E.L.D. lost track of them after that."

"Do you think they have files like this on everyone?" Fitz asked nervously.

"I suppose so." Simmons shrugged, hanging over Ward's shoulder, "Is there anything else about Claudia?"

"Not in here." Ward shook his head, "It just says, see file: Claudia Donovan."

"So she was as much on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch list as Skye was." Fitz pointed out, "Is her file here?"

Simmons flipped through the 'D' section of the cabinet, "No, but it's probably accessible thought the computer with the right clearance… or skills."

"Which would mean we need Skye." Fitz pointed out.

"Need me for what?" All three agents jumped at the sound of her voice coming from the doorway. Ward slammed the file shut, attempting to hide it behind him. Skye frowned at him, "Is that _my_ file?"

"We weren't snooping!" Simmons squeaked, "It was Ward's idea!"

Ward shot Simmons a displeased glare, but Skye was ignoring both of them. Instead, she reached for the file, "Gimme!"

The three agents watched Skye flip through the file. It lacked a lot of the information Coulson had given her about how she'd ended up at St. Agnes' and she noted there was no exact day recorded for her birthday, which, knowing what she did, made sense, "I guess they gave me that too…"

Neal's head hung limply, they'd been their for what must have been nearly a day and a half and Neal had lost a significant amount of blood. Peter kept needling him for conversation, afraid to let him fall asleep in case he didn't wake up again, "Neal… Neal you need to stay with me. Can you tell me about the girl? Was she one of your girlfriends?"

"Kate was my girlfriend." He reminded Peter, his heart clearly not in the conversation, "_She_ was a kid. When I met her anyways, she must be in her mid twenties by now."

"A kid?" Peter frowned, "You're going through all this for a kid?"

Neal hesitated, glancing around as if he could determine whether their captor was listening in, "Her name was Beth. She was sixteen when I met her, her and her friend, Claudia, were living on the streets. I used to swing by their corner and buy them lunch when we got a good score. Then Moz, Kate and I took them in when Claudia got sick. Smart pair of girls, Claudia was tech genius and Beth was a real quick learner, she picked up skills almost faster then I could teach them."

"You were teaching her to steal." Peter didn't sound impressed.

"Better picking pockets then prostituting." Neal countered, testily, "She was a good kid. We parted ways when she was eighteen. We split up and were supposed to regroup at one of Mozzie's safe houses a few miles from where we first met Claude and Beth. When we didn't show, she burned her identity and went underground."

"Why didn't you show?" Peter asked, curious as to why he would abandon someone who obviously meant so much to him.

Neal managed a half smile, "You arrested me."

Claudia awoke feeling groggy and cold, laying on the damp, concrete floor of some sort of dank basement. Her hands were zip tied together and her back was pressed against something warm. Steve, she quickly realized. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she nudged him with her bound hands, "Steve, wake up."

Steve groaned, "Claude? Where are we?"

"Don't look now, Jinksy, but we've been kidnapped." She told him dryly, examining the dark, damp room, "There really is no such thing as an easy ping, is there?"

"It's taken you four years to figure that out?" He joked weakly, "And here I was under the impression that you were a genius."

She rolled her eyes, "How long do you figure we were out for? Artie must know we're missing by now, he'll sent help."

"Send help where?" Steve pointed out, "We have no idea if we're even still in New York… or America really."

"Right," Claudia agreed, "We need to find out why were here and how we get out… did they take your keys?"

Steve twisted so he could feel his jeans pocket, "Yeah, they're gone."

"Right… back to the drawing board."


	5. Chapter 5

Skye scowled at her keyboard, Ward was hovering behind her, watching her every keystroke. Being monitored didn't exactly help her focus on the task at hand, "You're not helping, you know."

"How long is this going to take?" He asked, impatiently, "Usually blast through this stuff like it's nothing."

"I'm not usually hacking level eight files." She pointed out testily, her mood only slightly brightened by the small ping that told her she'd succeeded, "Alright, I'm in. Now sit down, will you?"

Ward grumbled, but dropped into the chair behind her, waiting expectantly for her to share her findings with him, " What does it say?"

"Same old, same old." She told him, scrolling through the file to find the part where her and Claudia had parted ways. The information she was looking for was down at the very bottom of the file, close to being the last thing they had on her and as Skye read the given information, everything suddenly made terrible sense, "Oh Claude…"

"What is it?" Ward was back on his feet in a second when he heard her tone, searching her face for answers, "What happened to her?"

"Remember how I said she was acting strange and withdrawn before she disappeared?" Skye reminded him, "She checked herself into a psychiatric institution."

Ward frowned, leaning over her shoulder, "Why would she do that?"

"Claudia always had a hard time accepting what happened with her brother. He was a scientist who was killed in a lab accident when she was seven." Skye explained, "Claudia was nearly impossible to place in a foster home because she was convinced Joshua was still alive. It says here she checked in to the institution complaining of hearing voices and was diagnosed with schizophrenia."

"So we got attacked by a crazy woman?" Ward frowned, "She didn't seem _that_ whacked out to me."

"Well she was given medication and treated with…" Skye's voice hitched as she read the words on the screen, "They… they gave her electro shock therapy."

Ward winced, almost afraid to ask, "Did it work?"

"I guess it must have." Skye shrugged, "She checked herself out after six months, bounced around working odd jobs for another six and then she must have gotten into some major shit, because someone's actually censored SHIELD. Someone not authorized by SHIELD went through and redacted what little they had from the past five years. It's possible she's working for another top secret government taskforce. One higher up then we are."

Ward frowned, glancing at the blank patches in the file, "But there isn't anything above SHIELD… at least nothing I've ever heard of."

Skye bit her lip, "I think we just met level nine."

"Just tell me where is she." The man ordered for what must have been the hundredth time that hour. He had been attempting to persuade Neal into giving him information about Beth with a set of jumper cables and what appeared to be an amped up car battery. Neal was strong when he put his mind to it, you had to give him that, he'd managed to keep his vocalizations restricted to just the expected amount of pained screaming. "She's not worth your life."

Neal made a noise through his teeth that sounded like a mix between scoff and a hiss, further proving that the man wasn't going to be getting any information out of him. Making a dissatisfied sound, the man stepped back, abandoning his torture device, "So eager to protect her. I wonder if that would change if you knew of the suffering and death that she pulls in her wake?" He pulled a small silver remote out of his pocket, pointing it at a TV screen that the two captives had barely noticed against the darkness of the back wall, "Or maybe you just need better motivation?"

Peter blinked and frowned at the image that flickered to life on the screen. The view was off another small, dank, windowless room. Unlike their own accommodations, this room lacked chairs, or any furniture, and was inhabited by a man in his late twenties and a younger, auburn haired woman. A renewed look of panic entered Neal's eyes as he caught sight of the pair and the man laughed, "You have two hours to decide if the girl is worth more to you then these two. And keep in mind, if you don't give me what I want, you're little friend in there? I'll start by cutting up her pretty little face."

Artie's head shot up as he heard to door opening, desperately hoping it would be Steve and Claudia sauntering in, affectionately arguing about who should drive and who had done the brunt of the work when bagging the artefact. He would love he give Steve the "you should know better" look and to scold his surrogate daughter for not calling before flying home, but the cold grip of dread had already latched onto his gut. Steve did know better then to let Claudia forget to call and they both knew better then to miss their plane, which should have had them home two hours ago. Pete and Myka appeared through the doorway, bagged artefact in hand, laughing at some private joke.

The laughter died on Myka's lips as she saw Artie's face, "Artie? What's wrong?"

"It's Claudia and Steve." He informed them, "They're two hours late getting in and they haven't checked in since yesterday afternoon."

"You don't think something's happened to them, do you?" Pete worried.

Artie hesitated, "Don't bother unpacking. We're going to New York."


	6. Chapter 6

"Pete, hurry up!" Artie snapped, shoving a few last items into his bag, "You can eat on the plane, we have to leave in three minutes!"

"Hey, if we're going all commando on whoever is messing with Claude and Jinksy, I'm going to need to refuel." Pete frowned through a mouthful of sandwich, pausing to point at the computer screen, "Is that supposed to do that?"

"Doing what?" Artie glanced at the screen, frowning at what he saw. Some sort of symbol had appeared on all the screens in the room, some sort of bird like token, revolving on a black background. He scowled, punching a few keys angrily, "What is this?"

As if responding to his question, the screen flickered to life, the face of a young, part Asian girl in her mid twenties appeared on the screen, "Hello? Is this Warehouse thirteen?"

"Who the hell is this?" Artie demanded, "This is a top secret facility!"

"Yeah, sorry, but where I'm hacking you from is pretty damn secret too." She told him, "My name is Skye. I need to speak with Claudia Donovan."

Pete took this opportunity to step into the conversation, "You know The Claudster?"

"We're old friends." Skye told them, "May I speak with her?"

"No." Artie told her sharply, then amended, "She's not here. Her and her partner failed to return from their last assignment. We were about to begin searching their last known location."

Skye frowned, "Where? I'll meet you."

"Back to New York?" Coulson confirmed.

"Yeah." Skye nodded, a pleading look in her eyes, "Look, A.C., I know we should be focusing on finding the cuff thing, but for a long time, Claudia was all the family I had, I need to know she's okay. And anyways, she was the last person who we know had it."

"I agree, we should help find your friend, it's the logical next move." Coulson agreed, "We have to tread lightly, I've heard very little about this Warehouse Thirteen, they're not under our jurisdiction."

"We have a jurisdiction?" She asked, only half joking.

"Something like that." He half smiled, "I'll go tell May that we're changing course. Why don't you inform the others?"

"Yeah, sure." Skye nodded, heading down to the lab to find Fitz and Simmons. The two scientists were, as usual, buzzing around the lab working on some device that would probably save their lives one day.

Simmons looked up and smiled warmly as Skye entered, "Skye! What can we do for you?"

"Nothing, yet." Skye shook her head, "Coulson asked me to tell you that we're heading back to New York and we'll be teaming up with another organization called Warehouse Thirteen."

"The Warehouse Thirteen that Claudia works for?" She asked, raising and eyebrow in surprise. "Why are we doing that?"

"Because Ward and I were the last people to see her before her and her partner went missing." Skye told her, "I spoke with her boss, they failed to get on their plane last night and no one's been able to reach them since."

"She's been kidnapped?" Fitz frowned, entering the conversation.

Skye nodded, "And we're going to find her."

"Steve…" Claudia sighed, her head leaning against her partner's shoulder. They'd been painfully unsuccessful at escaping, mostly painful for Steve since he had been the one slamming his shoulder into the door, and now sat at the back of the room, leaning against each other for warmpth. "Steve…?"

"Mmmm?" He moaned, half asleep, which was an achievement considering their predicament. She figured it must have been something to do with his zen thing. "What is it?"

"In case we don't get out of here, I have a confession." She muttered. He started to protest, but she silenced him with a wave of her bound hands, "Hush, it's important… I ate all the snicker doodles and blamed Artie."

She felt his chest vibrate as he chuckled, telling her she'd successfully lightened the mood and caught his attention. He leaned his cheek against her head, "Can't sleep huh?"

"Of course not, look at where we are!" She pointed out, then admitted, "I can't stop thinking about Beth."

"Your friend." He remembered, nodding against her hair. "You don't think this had something to do with her, do you?"

"Do I think it's a crazy, random happenstance that the day I see her for the first time in six years, we get mysteriously abducted." She pointed out, "But she's not behind it. She would never do something like this."

"If she's not the one behind this," Steve frowned, "Claude, what if she's the end game? What if she's what they really want?"


	7. Chapter 7

Ward hovered in the doorway, watching Skye glide around the kitchen area. He'd been keeping an eye on her, looking for any sign that the news of Claudia's kidnapping was throwing her off her game, but she seemed to be fine. Her one advantage when they where training was how light on her feet she was, unfortunately, everything about her was light. Her every movement, every punch, every kick felt like she was being blown about by the wind. She moved deliberately, every muscle flex exact, but it never felt like she meant it.

Finally she seemed to feel his eyes on her back, twirling around and frowning at him accusingly, "What are you staring at?"

"I…" Her voice snapped him out of his trance, "I was just thinking about… your training. If you want we could fit in a last minute session before we get to New York. If you want to, you know, calm your nerves."

"I'm not nervous." She insisted, raising an eyebrow and rolling her shoulders back, "What, uh… what did you want to work on?"

"Well, I thought we could try and work on the strength of you impact when you hit." He shrugged, "I've been noticing lately that everything you do is very soft. You move like a dancer."

"A dancer?" She chuckled, "If that's what you want to call it."

"What do you call it?" He wondered, frowning slightly.

She paused, then offered him one of her trademark smirks, "Let's just stick with dancer, alright?"

_The girl groaned in frustration as one of the bells rang, "Neal, this is impossible!"_

_"It is not." He chuckled, wondering back over to where she was attempting the exercise he'd assigned her, "You're thinking about it too much. Two fingers, nice and light, remember?"_

_"I'm being light." She complained, "I'm just not a thief."_

_"Hey, if you can learn to hack a firewall, you can learn to pick a pocket." He insisted, seeing the doubt on her face, "Hey, I promised I'd teach you everything I know, right? This is where we start. Try again. Two fingers."_

It was Steve's turn to be unable to sleep. Claudia had finally drifted off, tucked under his arm. It had taken hours of humouring her constant theorizing and chattering about her friend and the possibilities of the situation, but eventually she had nodded off. And now he sat awake, holding her, over thinking the situation and worrying that the growling of his empty stomach would wake her again.

"You're starting to sound like Pete."

His eyes darted down to her face, feeling guilty. Her eyes were still closed but a tired smirk played across her features and she give him a light jab in the stomach with her finger. "Sorry I woke you."

"I was just dozing really." She shrugged, sighing, "How long was I out?

"About three hours." He told her, "They have to feed us sometime, right?"

"No." She pointed out, "They could just leave us down here to rot forever. It's already been what? Two days."

"Artie will be looking for us." Steve reminded her.

"That doesn't mean he'll find us."

He frowned down at her, "When did you start being such a cynic?"

"Bite your tongue, Jinksy!" She teased, "I'm not a cynic… I'm just realistic."

"Claudia. We'll get out of this. I promise."

_The girl held Claudia close to her as they huddled on the sidewalk, pulling her flush against her to share warmth. The younger girl coughed with such violence that the girl was concerned her hand would come away with blood on it. Her cold was getting worse by the day, in fact the girl was starting to fear it was worse then a cold. Shivering, she ran her fingers though the other girl's auburn hair, "It's okay, Claudia, we'll get through this. I promise."_

Neal's heart raced a mile a minute as he heard the sharp sound of footsteps on concrete coming towards him. It was an impossible choice to make and he couldn't take either option lightly. In the end, no matter what, he'd be trading one little sister for another. He knew what he was about to do was unforgivable, but it was out of his hands now. The man stopped in front of him. "Time's up, Mr. Caffery…"


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey so it just occurred to me that I probably forgot to mention, but this is set in the future for Warehouse 13, making Claudia around 23. For Agents of SHIELD, it's set in the first season, before Skye get's shot. Also I'm unofficially dubbing this chapter "Claudia and Neal" because there's a lot of them. ~ Tygger**

* * *

Skye sat at the bottom of the ramp, leaning her back against Lola's back bumper, waiting patiently for the arrival of the Warehouse 13 Agents. She wasn't sure what to expect, with Claudia being the only one from their organization she'd ever met and she'd seemed so different from what Skye remembered her being. She couldn't help wondering what had happened to her friend in the institution. She was startled out of her thoughts by the sound of tires on asphalt as a dark green SUV pulled up behind the plane. She recognized the two men who climbed out of the car, followed by an unfamiliar woman. Skye stood up to greet them, "Agent Neilson, it's good to meet you in person."

"Agent Skye..." Artie nodded, "I didn't catch a last name."

"I don't have one." She told him, "And I'm technically not an Agent. I'm just the tech support really. The real Agents are waiting inside."

"You say you're an old friend of Claudia's?" Artie brought up, following her up into the ship, "How well did you know each other?"

"We were inseparable." She told him, "For nearly eight years. We were roommates at St. Agnes and then lived together in the years after we ditched. Right up until she disappeared on me when she was seventeen that is."

"Ah, Agent Neilson!" Coulson greeted warmly, "Welcome! I'm Agent Coulson, I head this team. You've met Skye. This is Melinda May, Grant Ward, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz."

"Artie, please." He told them, "And these are my associates, Pete Lattimer and Myka Barring."

The two sets of agents nodded in greeting to each other as Coulson continued, "I'm not terribly familiar with what Warehouse Thirteen actually does, I've been informed that you're out of our jurisdiction. Which is no something that generally happens."

"Well we do seem to be the acceptation to most rules." Pete joked, quickly silenced by a sideways look from Artie.

"We collect and contain dangerous artefacts." Artie told him.

"And the cuff that Claudia took from Skye and Ward was one of these… artefacts?" Coulson assumed. "We assumed it was our department with it's Norse origin, you assumed it was your department because of what it does to people and we both swooped in."

"And then someone abducted my Agents." The edge in Artie's voice suggested they meant more to him then just being employees.

"It's likely we were the last people to see Claudia before she disappeared." Skye pointed out, motioning to Ward, "We didn't see her partner, he must have been checking the rest of the building."

"We should look around the building where you bumped into each other, the hotel, the museum…" Artie decided, "if we don't find anything there we'll start a broader search."

"Great." Coulson agreed, "We'll split into teams."

_Neal sat on the edge of one of the beds in the spare bedroom. Usually the room was empty, but against Mozzie's advice, he'd brought home a pair of strays. Besides, even Mozzie's paranoid heart had melted when Neal had walked in, Claudia a limp, feverish bundle in his arms. He'd begun to suspect that she had pneumonia a few days before when he'd heard her coughing, but now watching her shiver and sweat under the pile of blankets he'd wrapped her in, he was sure. Tenderly, he brushed her damp bangs off her sweaty forehead, "I'm so sorry, Claude, I should have done something to help you sooner."_

_She made a soft whimpering noise as she stirred from her delirious slumber, her soft brown eyes searching his face with no sign of recognition, "Beth?"_

_"No, it's Neal." He told her, dabbing her forehead with a damp cloth that Kate had left for him, "She's eating. I can get her if you want."_

_"N-no." She wheezed, grabbing his hand and shaking her head, "Stay with me?"_

_"Of course." He soothed, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb, "We're going to get you better, you hear me, Kid? And then I promise, I'm never going to let anything hurt you again."_

Peter paled as he watched their captor leave, eyes flicking back and forth between the man's retreating back and Neal's pained face. It was as if what he had just done had caused him more pain then the nearly two days of torture they had endured. "Are you sure you're doing the right thing?"

"There is no right thing." Neal told him, eyes trained on the floor, as if that would stop his partner from seeing the tears that threatened to spill, "Peter, if there is a god, he'd be right to let me rot in hell for what I've just done."

_"This should help her." Kate showed Neal the antibiotics she'd acquired while she was out. She popped open the bottle, shaking out a few pills, "She's going to have to swallow these."_

_"Right, thank you." He patted Claudia's cheek, "Come on, Kid, wake up, I need you to swallow some meds."_

_Claudia blinked her eyes open slowly, focusing first on him and then on Kate, her breath wheezy like she had to force every breath through a layer of water, "Katie… you didn't have to get me a present."_

_"Hush you." She scolded lightly, "You need to take these, they'll make you feel better, okay? We'll have you back on your feet in no time."_

_"Promises, promises." Claudia forced a painful sounding laugh, "Maybe I'll just stay sick and take advantage of your hospitality. Your set up is much better then mine."_

_Neal frowned, helping her sit up and handing her a glass of water and two pills to take, "Don't be ridiculous, Claudia. We're not putting you back on the streets. Mozzie will just have to get used to you."_

Claudia and Steve jumped in surprise as the door swung open, a man entering. It wasn't the man from the hotel, but a smaller, Asian man. Claudia pressed back against the wall, "What do you want?"

Steve moved slightly in front of her, knowing he was a harder target. The man raised a hand gun, pointing it Steve's head, "The girl comes with me."

"Like hell she does!" Steve snapped

The man cocked the gun. Claudia lept up, stepping in front of Steve, "No! Wait, please. I'll go with you. Just don't hurt him."


	9. AN

Hey everyone! Sorry, not a chapter. Don't worry, there's one coming soon. In the mean time, I'm putting together a Tumblr rp account for Claudia from this timeline and I would love for anyone who wants to come join me as any other member of any of the involved teams! My new Claudia blog is totallylavern. tumblr. com. Hit me up!

Tygger out.


	10. Chapter 9

"We found the body here." Ward told Myka, pointing out the area where the woman's body had disturbed the dust on the ground. "She was wearing the cuff and she looked like she'd been badly beaten."

"From what we could dig up, the cuff belonged to a Norse soldier." She informed him, crouching to examine the area, "It prevents the wearer from feeling any pain and induces rage. The wearer essentially beats themselves to death."

"If it's not technology, what would cause this cuff to do this." He frowned.

"Sometimes when an item is involved in a particularly traumatic or overly emotional events end up imbued with the residual emotional energy of the people involved." She explained. "When someone else comes into contact with the artefact, those emotions or specific behaviours are impressed upon them."

Ward made a sound of disbelief. Myka shot him a look, "Sorry, it's just, this doesn't strike you as a little… science fiction."

"You work for a secret government agency that employs superheroes." She pointed out dryly, "Is my job so much harder to believe."

He paused, "I guess not."

"So Claude entered over there?" She pointed to the far end of the warehouse.

He looked where she was pointing and nodded, "Her partner must have looped around the back. I never saw him and Skye wasn't looking for anyone else, she was too focused on Claudia."

"Four years." Myka frowned, "I've known Claudia for four years, she never mentioned Skye once… or anyone from her past for that matter. Just Artie and Joshua."

"Joshua?"

Myka glanced up, "Her brother."

"Oh." He nodded, "The one who died when she was a kid."

"Was presumed dead." Myka corrected, "He was discovered alive not long before Claudia joined our team."

"Is that why she checked out of the institution?" He wondered.

Myka paused, "It's not really my place to talk about it."

"Right. Sorry."

Skye glanced around the small hotel room. It was fairly standard, two single beds in various states of turn down, a bathroom and a small TV. There was a pair of suitcases between the beds, one full of plain, conservative, neatly packed men's clothes and the other overflowing with a jumbled mess of colourful, spunky clothes. She pulled Claudia's laptop from the bed sheets, slipping it into her bag, "I'll see what I can get of this when we get back to The Bus."

"You actually call it that?" Artie muttered.

She shot him a look, "So you're _the _Artie, huh."

He looked up in surprise, "She mentioned me?"

"Yeah." She hesitated, "I asked. She had nightmares when she first came to the orphanage, talked in her sleep and such. She mentioned your name a lot."

"Mentioned." He repeated.

"Screamed." She amended, "She would scream for you to help her."

He scowled, though there was guilt present in his eyes, "I promised Joshua that I'd take care of her."

"And you yet child services take her." She couldn't keep the edge of blame out of her voice. He fell quiet.

She leaned down and picked a small silver necklace off the night stand. Artie glanced at the small rose shaped pendant, "That's her favourite."

"I know." Skye nodded, closing her fist around the necklace, "Neal bought it for her for her sixteenth birthday."

"Neal?" He questioned.

"After the orphanage, but before the institution, we were on the streets for a few months." She reminded him. "It was stupid to think we could make it on our own, but we didn't have a choice. Three months in, Claudia got pneumonia. A guy a few years older then me, Neal Caffery, had been buying us coffees and sandwiches. He took us in, got her medicine… he saved her life. We lived with him and two of his friends for the following years. Right up until Claudia disappeared, to the institution as we know now."

"Claudia and Neal were close?" Artie guessed.

"He reminded her of Josh." Skye answered, knowing that's what he was really getting at. She handed him the necklace and watched him gently run his thumb over the twisted silver coils of the pendant. "She always acted like she hated you."

"We got past it." He told her, "You may have notice that she's hard not to like. And we made our amends when we found Joshua."

"I thought he was dead." She frowned, slipping into the bathroom and poking into the cosmetic bags on the counter, "I mean, Claudia never believed it, but no one else seemed to think there was any chance he'd survived."

"It's complicated." Artie told her, "But he's alive and well."

"Complicated like amnesia?" Skye wondered.

Artie raised an eyebrow, "Why do you say what?"

"Why else would he abandon her like that?" She shrugged.

He shook his head, "It's not amnesia. He was experimenting with the theory of teleportation and he got it half right. He got himself trapped in an Interdimensional rift for twelve years."

"Poor guy." She frowned, coming out of the bathroom. Something at the edge of the bed skirt caught her eye. She crouched down, pulling a small dart out of the carpet, "Artie? Look at this."

"A tranquilizer dart." He confirmed, "At least we know that they were alive when they left here."

"Can I help you?" Coulson looked up, startled out of his thoughts by the voice of the pretty, dark skinned FBI Agent cross examining him.

"I believe so." He offered his hand to be shaken, "I'm Agent Phil Coulson. I'd like to speak to the agent who looked into the museum robbery last Monday."

"That would be Agent Burke." She told him, lines of worry becoming more prominent on her face, "But I'm afraid him and his consultant have been missing since then."

"Missing?" Coulson frowned, "I'm here about two other government agents who are missing in connection with that case."

"Then it looks like we're going to be working together." She nodded, "I'm Diana."


	11. Chapter 10

"This is our missing agent, Peter Burke." Diana handed around the photo of them to the team, once they had all gathered at the FBI headquarters. "And his consultant…"

"Neal." Skye gasped, "Neal Caffrey."

"You know Caffrey?" Jones frowned, wondering over from his desk.

Skye faltered a little under everyone's curious gazes, "Uh, yeah, he took Claudia and I in when we were street kids."

"What are the chances of you of you knowing two of the victims? And both of them being from your past?" Ward frowned.

"What are the chances of all three of us ending up on the same case?" She frowned in return, "Unless we've been looking at this all wrong…?"

"This has nothing to do with the Cuff." My finished the though, "It's about you. You dropped off the grid when you joined the Rising Tide and now someone's trying to draw you out."

"And instead they got the closest thing to family I've ever had." She couldn't hide the guilt and pain in her voice.

"They might try and use Claudia and Neal to find you or draw you out if they think you'll trade yourself for them." Artie scowled, worrying over what might be happening to his surrogate daughter.

"I would." Ward shot her an over protective look and frowned she frowned back.

"Nevermind that now." Coulson ordered, silently forbidding it, "Can you think of anyone else from your past who might be a target?"

She nodded, "We had two others who lived with us. Kate Moreau and Mozzie… I don't know his last name."

"Jones." Diana ordered, "Go pick up the little guy."

"What about Katie?" Skye demanded as Jones left the room, "She's probably a bigger target then Mozzie."

Diana shifted uncomfortably, not meeting Skye's eye, "Katherine Moreau was murdered nearly four years ago."

Skye looked horrified, "What? No… who would kill Kate?"

"Vincent Adler bombed the plane Neal was supposed to be with Kate, him and Alex Hunter were perusing Marie Antoinette's Music Box." Diana told him apologetically. "Kate was on board already."

Simmons put a hand comfortingly on her shoulder, but she jerked away from the touch, "The Music Box was a pipe dream of ours… Neal promised he'd leave it alone when Kate left."

"It got complicated." Diana told her, watching her retreat back towards the elevator, looking sick.

"Who was Kate?" Pete wondered, once Skye was out of earshot.

"Neal's girlfriend." She told them glumly, "Sweet girl from what I've heard. Like most of the girls in Neal's life, they got involved when they fell on hard times and he turned her into her a fellow con artist. Eventually she figured out Neal is never going to give up the life. Ultimately her involvement with him got her killed."

"You don't think very highly of Mr. Caffrey then." Myka guessed.

"His heart is in the right place, but he's reckless and deviant and gets people hurt." She frowned, "He is a huge asset to the team though."

Simmons broke off from the group, wondering over to where Skye had parked herself in the chair behind what appeared to be Neal's desk. She'd pulled an old picture out of her wallet and was staring. Simmons crouched beside her, "Are you alright?"

"I think I'm going to be sick." She admitted, "Do you have any siblings?"

"No." She shifted uncomfortably, "What's that?"

Skye showed her the photo. It was an old, faded Polaroid picture of five people. Skye was the only one Simmons recognized and she was younger, maybe eighteen, smiling brightly with a guitar balanced on her lap. In the background there was a small man in a bad toupee, a dark haired couple, both with bright blue eyes, and a girl, around Skye's age, with auburn hair and warm brown eyes, sprawling across their laps, grinning up at the dark haired man. Skye pointed to the four in the back, "This is Mozzie, Neal, Kate and Claudia."

"You look happy." She pointed out. "Skye, we'll find them. I promise."

Skye looked as if she had more to say, but a commotion from the elevators cut her off. Jones re-entered with a short, spectacled, mostly bald man that Simmons recognized as the Mozzie from the photograph. And he was kicking up a terrible fuss, "You can't do this! I know my rights!"

"Easy Mozzie." Diana rolled her eyes, "I asked Jones to pick you up…"

"What's wrong?" Mozzie demanded, "Did something happen to Little Teddy?"

"Theo! His name is Theo." She snapped, then shook her head, "And no. There's a girl here who says she's a friend of you and Neal."

It was hard not to see the difference in Skye. The second Mozzie entered the room, she'd tensed up, eyes alert and full of far away memories. As soon as she was mentioned, she shot out of her seat, "Moz?"

The bald man lit up as he recognized the young woman, "Bethany!"

Skye threw her arms around Mozzie's neck and the usually awkward middle aged man embraced her in return. She pulled back after a minute, worry plain as day on her face, "Moz, whoever took Neal, they have Claudia, too."

"You've seen her?" He asked hopefully, "She's alright?"

She nodded, "Last I saw her. Her new family is here looking for her too. And her partner is missing as well, just like Agent Burke."

"Partner?" Mozzie questioned, frowning.

"Yeah, she un, she works for the government now." She told him sheepishly, "So do I, actually."

"The government?" He groaned, "Why would you do that? Did I do something wrong in raising you? Is this teenaged rebellion?"

"Mozzie, I'm twenty-four." She reminded him. "And sometimes you have to crawl into the lions den to get what you need."

"You couldn't get it from the Rising Tide?" He grumbled, "I'm proud of you for that by the way, good job there. Did you find what you were looking for, at least?"

Skye glanced over at her team, "Yeah. Sort of."

"Good." He nodded, still not sounding happy, "Have they heard anything yet? What do the kidnapper want?"

"We think…" She paused, "We think it's me. They want me."

Mozzie scowled, "Why? Claudia's the better hacker. Neal's the better con…"

"It might be about something else…" She realized, "About what happened in China… to my birth parents."


	12. Chapter 11

**WARNING THIS CHAPTER HAS A TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF RAPE.**

* * *

Neal listened to the fading footsteps, his eyes never leaving Claudia. She'd grown up since he'd last seen her. She wore more make up now and the short bob that Kate had cut her hair into had grown into long, wavy auburn locks. She stood taller, he noted, though her shoulders carried more weight then he'd ever seen her carry before. She was folded over on herself now, head hanging, held up by the zip ties trapping her in the chair she'd been put in. She was awake, he knew it, "Claudia?"

Her head jerked up and he winced, seeing again the long, thin cuts the man had carved into her cheeks. She hadn't made a sound as he'd done it, not one sound. There were pained years in her eyes now as she offered him a weak smile, "Neal…"

"Where have you been, Little girl." He managed a smile in return, "It's been years. You disappeared on us."

"I'm sorry. I had a… an appointment." She finished lamely.

"Five years." Neal frowned, not quite believing her, "You had an appointment that kept you detained for five years?"

She hesitated, her eyes dropping to the floor, voice lowering, "I had an appointment in a psychiatric facility."

"Oh." It did make a bit of sense, she had been acting strangely before she disappeared, "I'm sorry to hear about that."

"I was only there for six months." She told him, "Then I went to find my brother."

"Joshua died." Neal frowned, repeating what he'd been told time and time again by both her and Beth.

"I _thought_ he died." She corrected him, "He's alive."

"You found him?" Neal couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.

She nodded, "Took twelve years, but I got him back."

"I'm glad you got to see him again." He managed a half smile.

"Me too." She nodded, "It gives me one more reason to get out of here alive."

_Claudia twitched. The institution was cold at night and she couldn't sleep. She didn't like the new treatments they gave her. The seizures they gave her hurt and she was having troubles remembering things. Not important things, bits of conversations, chapters of the book she was reading, they just weren't there. And yet the things she wished she could forget shone in her memory like a beacon, calling her to remember all the pain and betrayal she'd ever felt. Even now as she sat on the edge of her bed trying to shut them out, they burned in her mind._

_She flinched as she heard the door click open and the man entered. She knew him. Kyle. He was nice to her. She thought he was her friend. She shuttered as he ran his finger down her spine, "I… I'll tell…"_

_"Don't be stupid, Princess." He mocked harshly, grabbing her and pushing her down on the bed, "You're crazy. No one will ever believe you."_

"We need to check the museum again." Diana ordered, "That's the last place Peter and Neal were seen. In fact, Neal's tracking anklet went offline inside the building, so we figure they were taken from there."

"So why don't we stir up some noise?" Pete suggested, "A few of us go in, flash our badges around, see if I can't get a vibe about the place."

"A vibe?" Jones questioned.

"Don't ask." Myka shook her head, "Just go with it. He's usually spot on."

"Right." Coulson nodded, "We should send him in then. And someone from the local FBI division…"

"I'll go." Jones volunteered, "That way Diana can stay here with the Little Guy. He likes her better anyways."

"And I'll go, Sir." Simmons volunteered, a little shyly, "Someone should be there to examine any physical evidence found at the scene."

Coulson seemed to hesitate, so Pete stepped in, "Don't worry, make sure nothing happens to her."

"Alright then." He agreed, then nodded at Simmons, "Be careful."

"So this cuff is an artifact." Simmons confirmed, "And it's just been hanging around the museum all this time?"

"That's kind of how it works," Pete told her, "Any one of these things could be an artifact, but you never know until they start causing trouble."

"That's incredible!" She exclaimed, gazing wondrously around at the museum pieces around them, wondering which one could do what.

"Excuse me? Agent Lattimer?" The man approaching them was a tall, lanky and blonde. He seemed nervous, "We spoke on the phone."

"You're the curator." He confirmed, "This is Agent Simmons. You know why we're here?"

"Yes, the missing agent and his consultant. It's really terrible." He told them, "Are you sure this was the last place they were seen?"

"Positive." Pete told him, "The consultant was wearing a tracking anklet and it was deactivated inside the building."

"Oh, that is worrying." He frowned, "Well, we'll help in any way possible."

"Good, we're going to need to search the premises." Pete nodded.

"Right, of course." The curator agreed, "Look wherever you need to."

Simmons came back to Pete's side as the curator disappeared back towards his office. Pete frowned, "He gives me a bad vibe."

"You think he's involved?" She wondered.

"I can't say for sure." He sighed, "But he definitely knows more then he's saying. We should call the others, tear this place apart."

"Look wherever you need to?" The man snapped angrily.

The curator shrank back, "I didn't know what to say. They're suspicious already, if I'd turned them away, they'd know."

"And this is why you're not the brains of this operation." He growled, "Now get out of my sight while I decide how you're going to fix this mess."

"… But Jer-"

"_I said get out_!"


End file.
